Mary's Bakewell Tart

I am a fan of the dutch television program Heel Holland Bakt (All Holland Bakes), so when the 2016 series of The Great British Bake-off was broadcasted on dutch television this summer, I didn't miss an episode. One week judge Mary Berry chose a bakewell tart for the technical challenge, and I decided to try baking it in my Aga. Especially because one of the layers in the tart consists of frangipane and I love this word!
It turned out to be a real challenge and I had to change the original Marry Berry recipe, but I am satisfied with the (very sweet) result.

Ingredients:

The sweet shortcrust pastry
- 200 g. plain flour
- 25 g. icing sugar
- 100 g. salted butter, chilled and diced
- 1 large egg, beaten
- 1 tbsp. cold milk

The frangipane
- 150 g. salted butter, softened
- 150 g. caster sugar
- 150 g. ground almonds
- 2 eggs, beaten
- grated zest of 1 lemon
- 1 tsp. almond extract

The jam
- 4 tbsp. raspberry jam

The icing
- 300 g. icing sugar
- 1 tsp. almond extract
- 3 tbsp. water
- red food colouring gel

To make the pastry, rub the cold butter in the flour, using your fingertips. Keep rubbing until it looks like fine breadcrumb (photo). Stir in the icing sugar, add the egg and the water, mixing to form a soft dough. Don't knead it!
Shape into a disc and chill for 30 minutes, wrapped in cling film. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured work surface and use to line a 23 cm fluted flan tin. Leave in the fridge to chill for another 30 minutes.
Line the pastry case with baking paper and fill with baking beans.
Bake blind high in the baking oven (180º C) for 20 minutes, then remove the beans and paper and cook for a futher 10 minutes to dry out the base. Take out to cool.
Spread the base of the fan with 4 tbsp. raspberry jam.
Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add the ground almonds, egg, lemonzest and almond extract and mix together. Spoon the mixture into the pastry case and level out with a pallette knife.
Bake for 45 minutes on the floor of the baking oven, until golden and a skewer inserted in the centre, comes out clean.Remove from the oven and leave on a wire to cool.
For the icing, sift the icing Sugar into a bowl. Stir in the almond extract and cold water to make a smooth, fairly thick icing.
Place 3 tbsp, of the icing in a separate bowl and add the red colouring gel to make a raspberry coloured icing. Spoon the icing into a small piping bag fitted with a no. 2 plain nozzle (or make a cornet, using baking paper).
When the tart has cooled, spoon the icing on top, spreading evenly. Pipe parallel lines of the pink icing over the white icing, then drag a cocktail stick through te line to create a feathered effect. Leave to set.

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